A Sorting Song by Dumbledore
by Qoheleth
Summary: A companion to Textualsphinx's "A Sorting Song by Severus". Nobody outdoes Albus when it comes to patter songs.


**Disclaimer:** _Harry Potter_ belongs to J.K. Rowling, while "The Song of the Heavy Dragoons" was written by Sir W.S. Gilbert and composed by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Since I am not even British, I don't see how I can be confused with any of these persons.

**Image disclaimer: **The illustration above is a still from Opus Arte's production of _Patience_. I was in no way associated with it, and I hope that the people who were don't mind being used as an icon of the play. (I know I wouldn't.)

* * *

Those of you who have read Textualsphinx's masterful work "A Sorting Song by Severus" are aware that, in the year 1999, Severus Snape wrote a Sorting Hat song to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Modern Major-General". (For those of you who haven't, the story ID is 679299.) What you may not be aware of is that Albus Dumbledore, while broadly approving of Snape's work, privately suspected that he could do an even better G&S parody – one, for instance, in which the trisyllabic rhymes actually rhymed trisyllabically. Accordingly, in 2000, he produced the following little ditty set to the tune of "The Song of the Heavy Dragoons" from _Patience_.

"The Song of the Heavy Dragoons", of course, is famous in Gilbertian circles for its barrage of abstruse, pointless, and occasionally incomprehensible historical and literary references. Dumbledore reproduced this characteristic flawlessly, with the result that the 2000 winter semester of Advanced Muggle Studies was dedicated entirely to decoding this song. (They never did determine whether "Chesterton" referred to the turn-of-the-century man of letters or to the early _Doctor Who_ companion. Dumbledore himself, when asked, just smiled enigmatically.)

Snape himself later said that he considered Dumbledore's song "grossly inferior" to his own. Whether he actually believed this, or whether he was simply annoyed at his house being associated with Vichy and Mordor, is difficult to determine. My readers can form their own judgments.

* * *

I'm the Hogwarts School Sorting Hat; first years they don me, and  
I search their hearts, minds, emotions, and wills.  
Knowledge of who they are then comes upon me, and  
I pick the Houses that best suit their skills.

Perhaps they belong with the students of Slytherin,  
Having the realism of Marshal Petain,  
Slyness of Morgoth, who set the Trees witherin',  
Secretive nature of Bruce "Batman" Wayne.  
Hufflepuffs, meanwhile, have Melly's humility,  
Peacemaking skills of Juan Carlos of Spain,  
Loyal as Ursus (without his servility),  
Earnest as Strephon, the amorous swain;  
Lions have bravery rivalling Joan the Maid,  
Passionate heart that Sam Weller has shown the maid;  
Eagles, the wit of the droll Aristophanes,  
Eye for a detail as telling as Zoffany's –  
Hans Christian Andersen, Harriet Stowe,  
Louis the Spider, and André Malraux:  
Take from these elements all that is fusible,  
Melt them all down in Professor Snape's crucible,  
Set them to simmer and scrape off the scum –  
And a Hogwarts School class is the residuum!

_(At this juncture, Professor Dumbledore rose and led the faculty in a chorus of "Yes! yes! yes! yes! a Hogwarts_ _School_ _class is the residuum!" )_

* * *

If you wish to reside in the Gryffindor tower, you  
Must have the gumption of Sophie Germain,  
Briskness of Herriot mending a cow or ewe,  
Vigor of Thor in the Hall of the Slain;  
Ravenclaws all have the genius of Faraday,  
Method of Euclid defining a plane,  
Shrewdness of Hamlet out-Heroding Herod, de-  
Tachment of Rugen disserting on pain;  
Badgers have Chesterton's commonplace sanity,  
Love of St. Francis for all of humanity;  
Serpents, imperial flair of a Flavian,  
Speech skills of Siegfried (reptilian, not avian) –  
Richard the Lion-Heart, Capra's John Doe,  
Pallas Athene, and Hercule Poirot:  
Take from these elements all that is fusible,  
Melt them all down in Professor Snape's crucible,  
Set them to simmer and scrape off the scum –  
And a Hogwarts School class is the residuum!

_("Yes! yes! yes! yes! a Hogwarts_ _School_ _class is the residuum!")_


End file.
